2003-06-17 - 7:37 a.m.
�Hell of a life. Damned if you do and damned if you don�t. Puts a man in one confounded bind, I�d say.��Scanlon referring to the lives of epileptics, One Flew Over the Cuckoo�s Nest
Have you ever had the feeling that a Might-Have-Been is staring you in the face?
I can still remember the day I met Laura in a middle school bathroom. I was in sixth grade; she was in fifth. I was in Gifted and Talented; she was in special education. Other than gender, we only had one thing in common: epilepsy. We were both seizure-prone.
Laura had been known to be epileptic, and severely so, for some time. She had an aide with her at all times just to make sure she didn�t hurt herself when she spontaneously fell and began to shake. She was overjoyed to meet someone else who understood. I had just been diagnosed. I had no idea to what extent I had it, although it didn�t seem too bad. I felt vulnerable. I was overjoyed to meet someone who understood.
Laura and I became friends. We joked with each other about being possessed by demons. We asked about each other�s seizure status. We got lectured together about how we should never go anywhere unsupervised; what would happen if one of us had a seizure? (Gotta love those friendly police officers.)
And then we went to high school. Our high school is distinctly tracked by academic ability. Now, not only were Laura and I a year apart, we were about two or three levels apart. Nor did we have the same lunch period. Consequently, we lost touch.
Until a few days ago, when we came face to face on the last day of classes.
�Have you had any seizures lately?� she inquired.
�No,� I responded. It�s the truth. I haven�t had a seizure since sixth or seventh grade; two pills a day control my epilepsy completely.
�I�m having another brain surgery,� she said forlornly.
�Oh,� I replied awkwardly. Then, to lighten the tone, �I�m taking your dad�s (the swim instructor) life-guarding class next year. I wonder if he�ll even let me in the pool?�
�Maybe he�ll make you the one getting rescued,� she said darkly. �I wouldn�t mind if they did that to me.� Then, after a pause, she added, �I wouldn�t mind if they didn�t rescue me.�
And as I stood there, staring into Laura�s face, with her dull eyes and her hair not quite grown back from her third brain surgery, I had a revelation: it�s far too easy to take life for granted. Here I am, a rare case, a success story, hating my pills and my �Medic Alert� bracelet because they inconvenience me, while right in front of me sits a girl who struggles in school and can�t even take two steps without her parents or some teacher breathing down her neck, who takes eighteen pills a day and can�t grow out her hair like she wants because every time it approaches normal length she needs another brain surgery, and who tolerates all this even though it�s all a load of bullshit because the only thing her eighteen pills and her three brain surgeries have changed is that now she knows she�s going to have a seizure thirty seconds or so before it happens anyway. It makes me think, damn, that could�ve been me; there but for the grace of G-d, or luck, or something, am I.
And it makes me wonder, does Sister, the mild asthmatic, feel that way when she looks at her friend who can�t even go on the Girl Scout overnights because she�ll have to go to the hospital for her asthma attacks and who watches Sister run the Mile Run and run amok at camp without difficulties? Does Mom, with her slight MS, feel that way when she sees someone so crippled by the disease that he needs a frickin� wheelchair, even as she walks unaided and suffers only mild bouts of tiredness?
Am I the only one?
That might have been me.
And I never thought about it before.
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